The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Cylindrical energy storage devices, such as lithium ion cells, offer significant challenges in cooling due to their shape, electrical potential and potential failure modes (e.g., cells get too hot or too cold). Typically, such lithium ion cells are limited in maximum temperature before degradation of the interior components threatens not only their operation and lifespan, but also the safety of the system utilizing the cells. At high operating temperatures, the reaction rate within the cells increases causing increased heat generation due to joule heating. If the temperatures rise high enough, the reaction rate increases to an uncontrollable level, creating a positive feedback loop (e.g., thermal runaway) where temperature rise can rapidly leading to a violent release of energy. While thermal runaway can be caused by excess temperatures, it can also be caused by other factors, such as overcharging, over-discharging, short circuiting (both internal or external), and cell damage. Additionally, often a plurality of cells are packaged together such that the cells are not thermally isolated from adjacent cells. In such instances the failure of a single cell (e.g., thermal runaway of a single cell) can propagate to one or more adjacent cells in the package. The challenge of minimizing the propagation of heat from one cell to adjacent cell(s) is particularly difficult in densely packaged battery with multiple cells. Further, with power density (e.g., W per kg, W per cm3) of the battery being a critical metric in size and space applications with increasing power needs, it is useful for energy storage coolers to be compact, lightweight, low thermal resistance, and safe in case of one or a few cells go into thermal runaway. Finally, in some applications it is difficult to operate energy cells at low temperatures, and it is preferable to have a low thermal resistance method to quickly raise temperature of cells and improve their efficiency or operability. While many known thermal management methods and systems for energy storage systems can satisfy one or two of the abovementioned features, none simultaneously keep densely packaged cells at desirable temperatures while insulating such cells from neighboring cells that may go into thermal runaway.